West Ridge Street in Lansford is illuminated for Christmas. Light posts clad with wreaths dot the sidewalks leading up to one particularly festive building: The borough office. Lighted wreaths and garland adorn the windows and doors.

It's all thanks to Lansford Alive.Lansford Alive is a community-based group aimed at aesthetically improving downtown Lansford and encouraging small business production."My family's been in town for a couple generations and I still want to see the town move forward," said Christopher Ondrus, president of Lansford Alive. "There are a lot of positive aspects that the borough still has."To help the group with their goal, a $500 grant has been awarded from the Main Street Lehigh Valley program through the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. Lansford Alive is the first organization in the area to receive such a grant.To be eligible for the grant, Lansford Alive had to put up $500 of their own. They did so, and used that first $500 to do some "greening" projects around the area in the past six months. These included placing planters around town, improving the community garden and decorating the borough office for the holidays."I think we accomplished a little bit of everything by doing what we did," Ondrus said.All of the materials for these projects have local business sources."I know they feel like it's a small step, but it's really a big step," said Alice Wanamaker, member relations director at the Carbon Chamber and Economic Development Corporation."People are going to get excited and they're going to say, 'I want to do this, why don't you do this,' and hopefully fundraising ideas will come out of it and people will get involved and really just start improving the downtown."Many times, small organizations can feel discouraged by the sometimes daunting, tedious process of applying for grants."It's really just becoming aware that these grants are available in Carbon County. Hopefully other groups see this and they say, 'I want that in my borough, too,'" Wanamaker said.Lansford Alive is also in the process of applying for the second phase of a downtown streetscape grant they received last year. The funds from that grant will be used to revitalize the sidewalks of downtown Lansford."I know it won't be how it was years ago when every storefront was filled," Ondrus said."I know we're not going to see those days again, but it'd be very nice, very positive to try and bring some businesses back and into our downtown and hopefully keep the town thriving for future generations."Lansford Alive meets at 6:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of every month at 161 W. Ridge St. in Lansford. All meetings are open to the public.They can also be found online at lansfordalive.org.